Styx (Goddesses of the Underworld #2)

1. I Think I Was Born from My Parents’ Rage

I Think I Was Born from My Parents’ Rage

Back when they were simply

the oldest of the Titans

caught under the cruel rule

of a father that controlled both sky

and their own mother Gaia,

the entire earth at his cruel whim.

What else could explain my split eyes,

the poison green of my hair,

and my two serpentlike fangs?

Back before everything shattered,

this was no terrible thing.

In fact, I was born deeply loved.

My birth was one of great rejoicing.

I was the first child of the Titans,

the rulers of a bright new realm.

After my aunts drew me from my mother’s womb

and washed me with fresh waters

taken from her favourite lake,

my father crafted a hurricane

and blessed it with my name.

My uncle Hyperion gave me jewels

made from amber rays taken from the sun.

I was heralded as a new beginning,

born from the bloodshed they no longer

wanted to think of, an unnamed atrocity.

So when I was passed from Titanide to Titan,

it was like I was the trophy that had been won.

Until I reached my grandmother, Gaia,

maker of this earth, who refused to hold me.

Instead, she stared at me, tiny, in my mother’s arms

and whispered, like a premonition,

‘She will never be beautiful.

One day, this will be her ruin.’

I defied this prophecy.

In the end, I defied everything

my family expected of me.